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McMaster volleyball star rebuilding hospital in Nigeria, passing up pros

Austin Campion-Smith helped McMaster win 4 OUA titles in his 5 seasons (Yoseif Haddad, McMaster University)
Austin Campion-Smith helped McMaster win 4 OUA titles in his 5 seasons (Yoseif Haddad, McMaster University)

For a young man who spent much of his time with his back to the opposition as one of the best setters in Canadian Interuniversity Sport across the past five men's volleyball seasons, Austin Campion-Smith knows how to pay forward — and keep a promise.

Campion-Smith, who was the nerve centre of a mighty Marauders' attack for the past half-decade, would be "a sought-after commodity in the volleyball world" if he so desired. Volleyball is one team sport where CIS is relatively close to parity with NCAA and many players do go on to spend some of their twenties playing in Europe. Campion-Smith, though, has found a different calling.

The Bowmanville, Ont., native, who helped McMaster win four Ontario championships during his tenure, is in Egbe, Nigeria, helping with a renovation project on a hospital that his grandparents, Dr. George Campion and Esther Campion, helped establish during the 1950s. That's sacrifice:



From Scott Radley

In 2011 — funded heavily by one of his uncles who's successful in business in Florida and supervised by his mother, who was the first white person born in the hospital — a renovation project began.

Enter Campion-Smith.

The 23-year-old had never been able to go before because all his time was tied up with volleyball. But in the days before entering his fifth year at Mac, he asked McMaster coach Dave Preston if he could step away from training for a few weeks to go help over there.

"I had to see the legacy my grandfather started," he says.

It was an awkward time to ask. Expectations were that this could be a national championship team. Everything was focused toward that goal. And the request was coming from the team's MVP at a time when everyone here was hearing about the Ebola outbreak in that area. Still, Preston said yes.

It changed Campion-Smith. So much so that after school this year he took off to do it again. This time he really got it. He especially fell in love with the people. A hard-worker himself — he hardly ever missed a practice in his years at Mac — he couldn't get over their commitment.

"They're working for $5 a day and they're working 10 times harder than anyone here," he says. "It was such a special thing."

It's going to take another couple years to finish the project. He hopes to go back again in a year or so. Then permanently. A man of strong Christian faith, he says he feels a calling to go. (Hamilton Spectator)

It says a lot for Preston and the often-misunderstood Canadian model of university sports that he found a way to accommodate Campion-Smith's desire to make his religion relevant by working overseas, instead of worrying about how it might affect his program. It also speaks well for the need to have a balance between short-term objectives — winning — and personal growth, something that often gets short-shrifted in competitive sport. Meantime, credit Campion-Smith for doing all that and playing some great volleyball for a perennially strong national contender.

He might have put volleyball aside, but he's doing some much more vital digging.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.